


The Surgeon and the Albatross

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), The Count of Monte Cristo - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:58:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two odd and solitary people meet in Marseille, in 1830, and<br/>have dinner. No albatrosses were harmed in the writing of this story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Surgeon and the Albatross

**Author's Note:**

> Written for serenissima

 

 

On February 28, 1830, in the port of Marseille, a man in his sixties stood on the terrace of Fort Saint-Jean, overlooking the old harbour, and appeared to gaze into the air. Although he had the indefinable look of a seagoing man, neither the fishing boats at anchor nor the single vessel of the French navy seemed to catch his eye.

The city of Marseille rises away from the old harbour: in effect the city lies about the port in a natural amphitheatre. The old harbour is the sewer of the city, the receptacle into which all the filth of the city drains. The stench from the harbor is considered to be intolerable, except to natives born and reared to it, but although this gentleman was plainly not from Marseille — his garments were of the English manner and make, though shabby and stained and carelessly worn — it seemed not to affect him, for he stood upon the terrace for some time, gazing into the air. Indeed, whatever had caught his eye so held his attention that he did not notice for some minutes that someone was politely seeking his opinion on the weather.

“Very tolerable,” he said at last, grasping that a question had been asked him. “Very tolerable indeed, for the time of year. But tell me, sir, do you think that is an albatross? I have never seen one so close to land.”

The newcomer looked intelligently in the direction that the man indicated, and shook his head. “I fear I cannot tell, Doctor. It would be strange indeed to see an albatross here.”

“Indeed, indeed it would. Ah, I fear my eyesight is not what it was in my younger days, or I should be able to identify it at once.” The man turned away with a sigh of weary frustration, and looked at the newcomer. He frowned. “My dear sir, I must apologise to you for my faulty memory, but I cannot recollect your name — ?”

The newcomer was a striking man: his complexion was a livid white, his eyes bright and penetrating. He was not much taller than Maturin himself, but well-built, with small, almost delicate hands and feet. His hair was dark. He wore the garb of a priest, but he moved like a man of action. “I am the Abbé Busoni, very much at your service, sir,” the newcomer said. “Do I not have the honour of addressing Doctor Stephen Maturin?”

The man made a leg, awkward and clumsy: “Indeed, sir — Abbé — you have the advantage of me.”

“Did you not serve in the British Navy during the late war?”

“Why yes — yes, I was ship’s surgeon on several vessels,” the man said. “We say _surgeon_ , in the Navy, you understand, but in fact I am a physician. Did you serve in the French Navy? Did I perhaps have the honour of treating you?”

“You treated many French prisoners, no doubt, Doctor — I would not expect you to remember them all. May I do myself the honour of inviting you to dine with me? I am staying at the Golden Peacock, and may promise you a modest repast. Shall we say at five, sir?”

With a few more polite words, they parted: Maturin turned his gaze out to sea, but the great bird that might have been an albatross was gone. It had not escaped his notice that Abbé Busoni had politely evaded his question. “Still,” he muttered, “in Marseille, in this year of peace, I think the worst risk I run is indigestion.”

The Golden Peacock was a pleasant inn: Maturin asked for the Abbé Busoni and was promptly shown up to a private room, with a bowing and scraping that suggested that Busoni was no poverty-stricken prelate. Almost as soon as Maturin had arrived, the dinner was served: five main dishes of fish and meat, and several pleasant side dishes. The abbé dismissed the inn servants as soon as the food was on the table, and helped Maturin with his own hands.

“Do you still serve in the Navy, sir?” the abbé asked.

“Why, no,” Maturin said. “Not for some years. I served always with one captain, you understand — the late Jack Aubrey. He retired from the sea some years ago. He lived on his estate — until he died.”

“He died?”

“Last year. Of an apoplexy,” Maturin added. “He ate too much, and grew gross in retirement. I had warned him he would not make old bones if he did not change his manner of living.” He spoke as a dry physician might, but around his lizard-darting eyes the Abbé saw wet marks. “He was used to say he had been Lucky Jack all his life, and was lucky now — to live in wealth and retirement, with the rank of Admiral, with his friends and his family about him.”

“There are worse deaths, indeed,” the Abbé said. “You, perhaps, were not so fortunate?”

“Oh, I do well enough,” Maturin said briefly. “Since my friend died I have travelled — he could never endure to travel on a ship as a mere passenger, and I confess that there is much of the world I still wish to see — and to travel without the nonsense of the Navy’s habit of dragging one away from the most interesting sights for the most paltry of reasons.” He spoke dryly, but with enthusiasm, of countries in South America and islands in the Pacific oceans, beasts and birds he had seen and studied.

“And where do you plan to travel now?”

Maturin shrugged. “The world is open to me. I had children — they are grown, and have lives of their own. I had a wife: she too lives her own life. I had a friend: he is dead. And you, Abbé? You have taken vows since we met last — I recollect you now, sir, though I confess I did not before.”

“You remember me?” A strange thrill rushed through the abbé’s body: no one had looked at him and known him in so long.

“Why, yes — in the winter of 1814, in the Mediterranean. I recall it now: _Pharaon_ , was it not? You were hurt in the shoulder, and I sewed it up. In recompense for which, you gave me a curious bird which had flown aboard your ship: I kept the skeleton for some years, until it was lost in some move or other. I had forgot your name, I confess it, but the bird — I was immensely touched by the gift, sir, it was gratifying indeed, and I am glad to have the opportunity to thank you, though so long after the event. How has the time passed for you? It must be more than fifteen years, must it not?” He recalled the man’s name exactly, now he remembered the incident: Edmond Dantes. But certainly it was none of his business if a man chose to adopt an assumed name.

“I left the sea,” the abbé said. “I studied: I became wealthy: I now travel, and pray.”

“You are fortunate. Though to the philosophic mind, money may be said to be a trivial thing, nevertheless I have lived in poverty, and I am now well-off, and I prefer the latter.”

The abbé smiled, a peculiar grimace. “Is it not said: Call no man happy till he is dead? To tell the truth, sir, I believed you to be in need — I was happy to think I should have the opportunity, perhaps, to do you some service.”

Maturin glanced down at his clothes with a grimace. “I have never been able to keep myself respectable-looking, I fear. No, sir, though I appreciate your generous intentions, I am in no need of your help. I have a competence — thanks to the institution of prize money, I fear largely earned through the capture of your nation’s ships and their subsequent sale.”

There was silence between them for a while. Maturin was staring vaguely out of the window. At last he came back to himself. “Sir,” he said, “I am sorry to be inattentive. The fact is, though I recall your face — and your hands, sir, especially — hands are very individual creatures — you seem much changed. I do not wish to make a personal inquiry, such an invidious thing — but I recollect a brown skin, and yours is — forgive me — very white, very pale.”

“I spent much time shut away from the sun,” the abbé said. “Fourteen years. I spent the time in study and contemplation.” A curious grimace passed over his face. Maturin looked at him attentively. “Yes,” the abbé said at last. “I learned much in that time. More wine, sir?”

They drank and talked into the evening, undisturbed. The moon rose, and shone into their chamber. If Stephen did not speak of his love who was dead, Edmond did not speak of the living hate he carried with him. “Sir,” the abbé said at last, “it has been a pleasant evening, and one I should like to repeat. Shall we meet again?”

“It would be a great pleasure,” Maturin said, with a bow.

“I have some business to carry out, that will take some time,” the abbé said. “This day is an anniversary to me. Shall we say on the 28th day of February, in ten years?”

Maturin blinked. For the first time it occurred to him that this man might not be altogether sane: but he would not commit the social soleicism of doubting a man’s sanity at his own dinner table. “What, in 1840? Here?”

“But yes, if you are agreeable: here at the Golden Peacock, at six in the evening, on the 28th of February, 1840.”

“If I am still on life,” Maturin said.

“Ah yes: if God wills. I shall go east, you — ?”

“South,” Maturin said. “I have never travelled in the lands below the Equator without the incessant demands of the Navy dragging at my heels.”

I would not wish my readers to try their faith in my veracity too high: I shall not, therefore, assure you that Stephen Maturin never forgot that evening with the Abbé Busoni. He travelled widely, as a gentleman of private means may in the modern world, and saw much: in the new continent he dissected his first wombat, and was nearly killed by a strange beast with the bill of a duck and the fur of an otter: his guide on that occasion told him that this creature laid eggs, but that Maturin was wise enough to set down to a tale to confuse and enchant a stranger. To tell the truth, as I have tried to do, he did not forget it, but did not remember it either: it came back to him with the taste of wine, or the sight of moonlight through a window, or once on the far ocean when he saw an albatross.

A letter from his bankers reached him in the winter of 1839, when he was in Venice, forwarding a message that had been sent to them from the firm of Thomson and French. The message was brief, fourteen words: _At the Golden Peacock, 28 February, six in the evening. I shall be there._

When Maturin reached the inn, at ten minutes to the appointed hour, he found it closed: the door barred and bolted, the windows shuttered. He was not altogether surprised, and a little cross with his own foolishness. To have been drawn back to this place — on the strength of memories, and a single anonymous note?

A man appeared at his elbow: a tall man, black as ebony, on silent feet. He indicated with gestures that Maturin should follow him, and they went through side streets — Maturin wondering at his own obedience — until they came to a courtyard and a door. The man bowed Maturin through, and he entered: through a corridor hung with tapestries, and up a stair.

“I am in the Golden Peacock, am I not?” Maturin asked the man at the head of the stairs. He was not dressed as an abbé, but he was the man Maturin remembered, from 1830 and from 1814: pale skin, dark hair, clear bright eyes. His hair was still dark, and he had grown a dark moustache, against which his teeth showed white as pearls when he smiled.

“Yes. I have bought it for this evening.”

They stood and looked at each other.

“I am very glad to see you,” the man said. “Shall we dine? And as we dine, if I may prevail upon your patience, Doctor Maturin, I should like to tell you a story.”

“I am at your service, certainly,” said Maturin. The meal was set ready for them, on fine porcelain dishes. As ten years ago, they drank and talked.

The story that the man told was strange and wild: of treachery and death, and living death within the Chateau d’If. Of strange adventures in eastern lands, of wealth beyond imagination, of a complex plan of revenge that had taken nine years to plan and to complete. Three men had betrayed Dantes, and one woman. Two men were dead, one man publicly disgraced and bereft of wife and children, and the woman had entered a convent.

“I felt throughout it all that God guided me, that I did only as God willed,” the man said. “And then, as my plans were complete — as the last stone was flung, as it were, it seemed to me that I might have been wrong.”

“I do not know,” Maturin said. He had listened with attention and silence. “I have never seen that revenge is a useful endeavour, and yet, had I suffered as you had suffered, had I seen those who caused me such intense pain — I do not know what I would have done. It is enjoined on us as Christians to forgive, even unto seventy times seven — and often, having seen what human revenge can do, I have thought that God is the only safe instrument to sever, as it were, a limb gangreous with evil.” He looked down at his hands. “I do not know,” he said again. “Why did you tell me this story?”

“Ten years ago I believed I could not love,” Edmond Dantes said. “And I believed no one could love me. I know I was wrong in the first: am I wrong in the second?”

Maturin looked up. “Shall you take an old man’s judgement?”

“I am no longer young.”

Moonlight filled the chamber with the taste of wine. Far out at sea two albatrosses flew together, their great wings beating in unison. Sometimes one solitary bird will find another, despite all storms.

_end_

_2450 words_

 

 

 


End file.
